Blog Post 7- Lewis

 In Hooks, "Eating the Other" she develops the idea of what the "Other" is and goes into detail on how whiteness and white supremacy is spread through faux acts of white males integrating themselves into other cultures. Particularly, Hooks references her time at Yale and how white males talked about having sex with women of different ethnic backgrounds as if it was a game of cards- a check of the box- where they no longer were associated with their whiteness, but rather believed they had assimilated to a more neutral, equal form of consciousness in terms of how they perceive race. This directly ties into the idea of dispositions and their subsequent impact on communication ethics. 

When you look at the group of white men on campus at Yale that hooks references, as a conjoined group, their dispositions to how they perceive race and racial disparities become clear. White males, in this context, believed that by having intercourse with women of other races they were moving away from being stuck in their whiteness and furthermore, that they no longer were active participants in propping up the dominant, white, racist and patriarchal system they are evidently tied to. The way in which they communicated this was through expressing a feeling that they were in reality becoming champions of cultural, ethnic, and racial integration. They were no longer the racist white male, but rather a well-rounded, experienced male. Furthermore, I believe this signified a significant disposition, that many men hold today, that women are something that can be used in order to elevate their own status in society. They believed that because they had sex with a women, this means they are better, in some capacity. They believed that they had elevated themselves out of the very system they actively take part in reinforcing, through intercourse with a women. In this context, the white male, is simply interacting with the Other in a way that allows themselves to gain a sense of moral righteousness. 

As a personal anecdote, I think about the idea of how white people and dominant white culture have utilized interactions with the other in many different areas in order to elevate themselves in some capacity and one example that I believe to be particularly concerning is when you look at missionary/volunteer work done by predominantly white organizations with dominant western religion/culture coinciding. A year ago I did an economic report on some of these organizations and there was a huge discrepancy between the resources they commit to mission trips and the amount of tangible results that are produced. Oftentimes, children will be sent- who are predominantly white in these orgs- at a cost that doesn't justify their return on labor. Rather than devoting resources to making truly impactful changes to these communities, they would rather be able to say that they interacted with this population, they helped them, and here are the pictures to show you. It is the same concept where we see the white males falsely showing themselves integrating into new cultures.

Hooks, B. (1992b). Black Looks : Race and Representation (pp. 21–39). Routledge.